The Minto and Area Philanthropic Committee has completed handing out grants for 2017.

The community now has an annual windfall of about $55,000 thanks to a former resident Lloyd Campbell who left millions of dollars with the Vancouver Foundation with instructions for a portion of the interest to go to Minto every year.

“In 2017 we did get money from the foundation and it was about $56,200. Our biggest grant went to Minto School. They are going to be putting a cement pad down on the school grounds. They have one right now but it is fairly small and we will put in a much larger one for them to have to offer more capabilities for them to play things like street hockey or basketball” said committee member Gwen Wooley.

The cement pad at Minto School will be constructed in 2018.

The committee also awarded a number of individual grants totaling about $2,700. “That money goes mostly towards things like hockey registration and equipment, ball registration and equipment and we did help out with the school program for swimming.”

The small community has made some adjustments once it was discovered the money was coming and they’d have to find laces to spend those funds in the Minto area.

“It’s gone pretty well but we are still kind of figuring things out. We’ve been in touch with the foundation to find out what our guidelines are in being able to pay this money out. We do have more people now thinking about what or how the money could be spent in the community. We plan to hold another community meeting probably in March of 2018” said Wooley.

Groups or individuals with ideas or wanting a portion of the grant money can apply anytime of the year.

“We are allowed to build up some of this money because all we have to do is report to the foundation what we spent the money on and there can be funds left over and it can be invested as the group sees fit and if there was a large project we just tell the foundation we have committed a certain amount of money to a specific project.”

Wooley adds the money can also be used as seed money to attract matching grants.